Engineering of Plant Chassis for Biosynthesis

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CD Biosynsis focuses on both the existing and newly emerging plant chassis to help our customers harness the power of plant synthetic biology to drive a revolution in biotechnology, agriculture, biofuels, and medicine. Our scientists have many years of research experience in plant engineering and synthetic biology, and are able to help our customers overcome the technical challenges in plant chassis development.

Background

Engineering of Plant Chassis for Synthetic Biology

As complex multicellular organisms, plants offer great potential for synthetic biology. Rapid advances in biotechnology allow plant synthetic biology to design and produce new traits or products by combining engineering principles with plant biology. Plant chassis has its natural advantages over microbial chassis. Plants can synthesize a variety of primary metabolites (e.g., proteins, fatty acids, and sugars) and a wide range of secondary metabolites of pharmaceutical and industrial importance by photosynthesis using only carbon dioxide and water as raw materials. Plant chassis are also free from the ethical issues that restrict the use of animal cells. Although plant synthetic biology is a rapidly evolving field, the development of an ideal plant chassis remains difficult due to the complex endogenous signaling networks in plants.

What We Can Do

The development of plant synthetic biology is fundamentally limited by the availability of the biological parts and the modeling, construction, and tuning of synthetic gene circuits. CD Biosynsis combines plant engineering strategies with our synthetic biology toolbox to enhance our capability in developing plant chassis. Our scientists with an in-depth understanding of plant synthetic biology have been working to develop new tools and optimal strategies to help our customers fully exploit the potential of plant chassis. Our core capabilities include, but are not limited to the following:

Enabling Technologies

Sequencing and bioinformatics analysis (e.g., third-generation sequencing and genome annotation)
Genome assembly (e.g., de novo assembly and genome mapping)
Genome editing (e.g., ZFNs, TALENs, and CRISPR/Cas9)
Plant transformation (e.g., Agrobacterium tumefaciens, protoplast electroporation, particle bombardment/biolistics, and pollen tube pathway)
Plant metabolic engineering (e.g., multigene transformation and reconstitution of metabolic pathway)

Synthetic Biology Toolbox

Synthetic plant genomes
Synthetic metabolic pathways
Synthetic biosensors
Synthetic switches and regulatory circuits
Engineering C₄ photosynthesis into C₃ chassis

Applications of Plant Chassis

CD Biosynsis has a team of experienced botanists who can provide valuable insights into the selection of the ideal plant chassis for our customers' intended applications. We focus on Arabidopsis, Nicotiana species, Marchantia polymorpha, Physcomitrella patens, wolffian, and tomato. We are also continuously exploring the potential for the development of those unexplored plant species as synthetic biology chassis, offering broader application possibilities.

Plant-based bioproducts and chemicals	Plant-derived biomaterials	Biomedicine
Production of natural products	Pant-based biodegradable materials	Plant-derived drugs
Plant-derived antibodies	Plant-based filler materials	Plant-derived nutraceuticals
Cosmetics ingredients	Plant-based packaging materials	Plant-produced vaccines
Food and agriculture	Renewable bioenergy	Plant-based biosensors
Increasing biomass of field crops	Production of plant biomass	Environmental monitor
Enhancing plant resilience	Engineering of bioenergy crops	Pathogen detection
Improving the quality of agricultural products	Plant-based biorefinery	Monitoring gene expression

Want to Learn More?

CD Biosynsis has been continuously expanding our synthetic biology toolbox and keeping our knowledge and skills current. We provide full support for our customers' innovations in synthetic biology. If you require any further details, please feel free to contact us and let us know how we can support your new idea or project.

References

Cook C, et al. Opportunities in plant synthetic biology. Journal of experimental botany, 2014, 65(8): 1921-1926.
Fesenko E & Edwards R. Plant synthetic biology: a new platform for industrial biotechnology. Journal of experimental botany, 2014, 65(8): 1927-1937.

Please note that all services are for research use only. Not intended for any clinical use.

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